Five initial lessons

The revolutionary insurrections in the Maghreb-Mashrek region

Gustave Massiah

30/05/2011

Opinión

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No matter how we choose to ultimately designate them, it must be said that the Arab revolutions have already brought us a great deal. They comprise an event, in the strong sense of the term, which was difficult to predict -- except in hindsight --, and which opens up new horizons for the future. I would like to draw your attention to five initial lessons that we can already draw from them.

The first lesson is that this situation may be qualified as revolutionary. We already knew that we were in a crisis situation: a crisis of neo-liberalism – as a phase in the development of capitalist globalization; a crisis of the foundations of the capitalist system; a crisis of Western civilization and its purported hegemony. The insurrections of the peoples in the Maghreb and Mashrek region show that there is not merely a crisis, but a revolutionary situation corresponding to the definition given by Lenin and Gramcsi: “when those at the bottom no longer wish to be governed, and those at the top can no longer govern.”

The second lesson has to do with the affirmation of major demands, such as social rights, the refusal of corruption, personal freedoms, and independence. What we have been observing is a confirmation of the contradictions that characterize the current situation: the predominance of social contradictions between the lower classes and the oligarchies, the explosion of social inequalities and corruption, the ideological contradictions related to the vital question of personal freedoms, the geopolitical contradictions linked to Western hegemony. There are also ecological contradictions having to do with raw materials, land, and water; however, they are less explicitly formulated than in the movements in Latin America and Asia.

These insurrections have shed light on trends in social contradictions. They reveal that the oligarchies have divided the dominant classes. In this region, they have been reduced to business ‘clans,’ which rely on the support of the police, militia, and secret service to gain autonomy from the armies that put them in power. They also underscore the fact that corruption, which results from the concentration of enormous amounts of money in the hands of the oligarchies, is the structural consequence of neo-liberalism, and that it is poisoning the world economy and political system.

The third lesson is that a new generation has taken up the torch of the revolution by revolting in its own way. It is not so much a question of youth, defined as an age bracket, as of a cultural generation, which has taken a stance in a situation and transformed it. This lesson draws attention to the profound social transformations linked to student demographics, which have resulted in an exodus of brain power, on the one hand, and unemployed people with degrees, on the other. The migrations link those in this generation to the world and to its contradictions in terms of consumer society, different cultures, and values. The results are certainly contradictory, but decrease their feelings of isolation and confinement. The unemployed people with degrees are building a new alliance between the children from lower social classes and those from the middle classes.

This new generation is putting together a new political culture. It is modifying the ways in which the determining elements in the following social structures are connected: social classes and strata, religions, national and cultural references, groups based on gender and age, migrations and diasporas, and regions. It is experimenting with new forms of organization, such as self-organization and horizontal accountability, and cleverly exploiting digital and social networks to that end. In various situations, it is attempting to define forms of autonomy that are somewhere between movements and political organizations. This generation’s high standards and inventiveness remind us of Frantz Fanon’s powerful statement: “each generation must discover its own mission, and fulfill it or betray it”.

The fourth lesson is that what is at stake is democratization throughout the Maghreb-Mashrek region. Emerging from particular national situations, and triggered by the Tunisian uprising and the Egyptian revolt, the insurrection has spread with its specificities throughout the Region. We must try to understand how, at a given moment, a nation of people is no longer afraid to revolt. The peoples have revolted throughout the Region, and have revealed the true nature of dictatorships by calling into question the roles given to them by Western powers. They have shed light on four basic functions fulfilled by these dictatorships: 1) guaranteeing access to raw materials, 2) guaranteeing military agreements, and particularly treaties with Israel, 3) containment of Islamism, and 4) the control of migratory flows. These peoples’ revolts have exposed things and created a new awareness; they have helped make possible what seemed to be impossible. A new approach was indispensable and is on its way to becoming reality.

As we have observed in other areas of the world, democratization tends to develop at the level of geo-cultural regions. However, regional movements do not eclipse the specific national situations. It is at the national level that relationships with state governments, institutions, and political organizations are defined, that alliances are made and problems resolved, and that transitions can be made. Yet, the regional level is also of great interest. Just as a nation of people comes into being through its historical struggles, a region is built through its transformations, and the convergence of the actions of the peoples living there. Today, we are witnessing the construction of the Maghreb Mashrek region.

Latin America is an interesting point of reference, because only thirty years ago dictatorships reigned throughout this entire region. However, they were overthrown by popular revolutions, and replaced by democratic regimes. These democracies were controlled by the bourgeoisie, which set up neo-liberal regimes corresponding to the prevailing mindset of that time. The result was a small amount of democratization and a great deal of social struggle. The United States changed its mode of domination, learning how to control these new democracies instead of the former dictatorships. However, in this process, many new social and citizen movements developed in Latin America, which modified the situation in many countries in the region. Change in the Maghreb Mashrek Region should not be envisaged over a period of a few months, but rather in terms of a generation. In addition, we should be asking ourselves, “What new social and citizen movements are going to emerge there?”.

The fifth lesson is that this new era opens up the possibility for a new phase of decolonization. Neo-liberalism began with an offensive against the first phase of decolonization: there was a push towards recolonization undertaken by the G7, which was then the G5, the club of the former colonial powers, doing whatever they could to control the price of raw materials and dominate the world market. This offensive was deployed in relationship to the management of the debt crisis, structural adjustment plans, and IMF, World Bank, and WTO (not to mention military) interventions. This recolonization was supported by the repressive and oligarchic regimes in the decolonized countries, which had resulted from the gap between the people and the elites within the national liberation alliances. This call to order of the people in the South preceded the adjustment to the world capital market of workers in Northern countries, who were faced with new unemployment policies, precarious jobs, and the undermining of social protection and public services.

This new phase of decolonization should correspond to a transition from the independence of countries to the self-determination of peoples themselves. As specified in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1976), all peoples have the right to external self-determination, which should be unconstrained by any external forces. They also enjoy the right to internal self-determination, that is to a democratic regime (i.e., a regime that guarantees individual and collective freedoms). This new phase of decolonization will require new advances in terms of international solidarity. This solidarity will be expressed in the convergence towards another possible world. It will begin in the convergence of different movements: movements of workers, employees, farmers, women, for human rights, youth, indigenous peoples, ecologists, stateless peoples, migrants and diasporas, inhabitants, etc. Progress has been made towards this convergence at the World Social Forums in terms of a strategic orientation calling for the creation of equal rights for everyone worldwide, and the affirmation of the democratic imperative. Many movements from the Maghreb-Mashrek Region are actively participating in this convergence. The revolutions in this Region remind us once again of the timeliness and importance of the convergence of peoples in movement.

- Talk given by Gustave Massiah at the Meeting of Solidarity with the Revolutions in the Arab world, 2 May 2011, at the Bourse du travail in Paris. It was published by im-média on the Facebook page of the Inter-collectif de Solidarité avec les luttes des peuples du monde arabe (Inter Collective for Solidarity with the Peoples of the Arab World):

www.facebook.com/pages/Comité-de-Solidarité-avec-la-Lutte-du-Peuple-Egyptien/186252268073586#!/pages/Intercollectif-de-solidarité-avec-les-luttes-des-peuples-du-monde-arabe/121147407964720and on http://egyptesolidarite.org/

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